The Wonders of Smart Lighting – Design To Lighten Up Your Life

There is just one single factor that can change everything in your home, from the appearance and size of each room, to your mood, comfort and even your health: lighting.

Whilst most of us try to find that essential piece of furniture or room-altering shade of beige, the use of aesthetic and natural lighting can actually make all the difference and will transform a home from a cold sterile shell, into a warm and inviting space.

The Smart Lighting Range

Lighting technologies have come a long way in residential design and there is bound to be smart lighting perfect for your home. From simple eco-friendly LED replacement smart bulbs with a long lifespan, to integrated LED strips, plastered-in wall and floor washers, all the way to intelligent whole house smart lighting systems that set schedules of pre-programmed lighting levels and moods throughout your home and garden. The capability of lighting to transform your home has never been greater.

Mood Lighting

Smart home lighting is a great way to upgrade your home and set the desired mood. With smart bulbs, you can adjust the colour, brightness and even temperature of the bulb—all from your phone or smart device. Warm bulbs create cosier atmospheres while cooler tones may give more energy. However, if you want something in between, many smart bulbs let you adjust the white colour temperature as well. This makes creating any kind of atmosphere easy and allows you to change your lighting with just a few clicks, whenever the mood strikes.

Setting Scenes and Schedules

Smart lighting systems enable you to easily control your home’s lighting. You can schedule lights to come on and go off at certain times of the day, such as when returning home after a long day so you aren’t returning home to a dark and uninviting house. You can even create custom scenes with your preferred brightness and colours, allowing you to easily switch your lighting between different settings depending on the occasion, dim the lights for a romantic dinner or switch to cool lighting for a movie night.

Practical Smart Lights

Whilst effective lighting can radically affect aesthetics and our mood, it has a functional role too in creating a smarter home. Getting the right light to illuminate kitchen work areas or the home study will enhance productivity, reduce eye strain and manage stress extremely effectively, making life easier for the whole family.

Smart Bulbs and Systems for Energy Saving

Choosing the right lighting can also save you money. Lighting accounts for around 15 percent of a typical household’s electricity bill but you can cut your energy use and lighting bill by utilising the latest LED technology smart light bulbs. Whilst all LED smart bulbs are not equal, the selection of a good quality fitting will not only use less than 20% of the electrical of a standard light bulb it will also last 50 times longer, so changing just ten lamps in your home to LED could save you over £600 a year at current costs …switching to LED could prove to be your savviest home investment yet.

Adding Value To Your Property

Incorporating good energy-saving technologies such as an all-LED lighting design and a lighting control system, into an overall home automation system, can also significantly increase the appeal of your property. For example, Lutron lighting control systems further reduce the energy used by your LED lighting while also providing security functions, holiday modes, automated switch-off when the house is unoccupied and remote control via your Wifi and smartphone app.

A smart assistant such as google assistant allows you voice control so you can easily operate lights with a simple voice command. Smart lighting makes life easier and more convenient, as well as providing great energy-saving potential, making it an ideal choice for those looking to add value to their property.

It’s not just about the Smart Light Bulbs!

But getting it right is not just as simple as changing a few light bulbs. To deliver an outstanding smart lighting system designed for your property, the design and associated cabling must be considered at the earliest stages of any refurbishment, extension or new build property and this can be a daunting task for many homeowners.

Working with a good lighting designer will deliver flexible and functional lighting that fulfils usage requirements whilst emphasising architectural and interior design features. Working with an experienced lighting design team allows the design process to be very simple for homeowners and detailed plans, cabling schedules and specifications for all light fittings ensure collaboration between your various building, design and electrical contractors to ensure a straightforward installation and stunning end result.

Finite Solutions have decades of experience in Smart Lighting. Contact us now about your project.